Fast Foreward
Leave a mark, not a stain.
Admittedly, that lead statement remains a personal motto that extends into the professional realm.
Unfortunately, not everyone shares or practices it on a universal basis.
For the last 25 years, opinion columns such as this one served as my creative outlet alternately to advocate, criticize, evangelize and even satirize supply chain behaviors, operations and viewpoints. Designed and intended merely to provoke thoughts, some column topics and treatments can ignite misplaced emotional distress and misdirected occupational duress — especially if a topic and the way it’s portrayed by one observer’s words hits too close to home and pokes or taps the internal guilt-o-meter.
Borrowing unabashedly the title of Jay McInerney’s famous 1992 novel, I’m disappointed to touch upon yet another case of “Brightness Falls” in this industry.
Every few years, as if by clockwork, a healthcare supply chain leader, manager or front-line professional succumbs to a temptation that invariably leads to scandal. These incidents span ignorance and negligence to outright malfeasance and felonious behaviors. Some might argue a fine line delineates morals from ethics, and both from legalities. But this isn’t an exercise to parse words and play with the boundaries of truth.
Whether you’re a dogmatic, orthodox absolutist or a compassionate, but somewhat logical pragmatist and anything in between or outside of those psychological jurisdictions, you surely agree on one thing: Whenever one of your own falls, it hurts everyone continuing onward.
Take the trite notion of one bad apple doesn’t spoil the bunch. However, we all know that’s a fallacy. If you leave a bad anything in close contact with anything else it will infect everything. Clinicians can vouch for that in this era of outbreaks and pandemics with oddly sounding, but famously memorable names. Granted, such infection may not be guaranteed. What IS guaranteed, however, are tarnished reputations as well as ill-informed and uninformed opinions spreading vitriol quickly and seamlessly in this era of instant media saturation.
Once the bile spreads, it takes a long time to scrub away. In fact, time does not heal old wounds; it just gives you the opportunity to cover up the wound with a scab, followed by an emotional paint job. Maybe what you do with your time determines how thoroughly and how well the wound heals.
Armchair psychotherapy aside, healthcare supply chain leaders, managers and front-line professionals should not use a colleague’s disgraceful exit as a convenient excuse to criticize or look down their noses at others. Committing contract signing mistakes, falling for sales rep strategic and tactical seduction techniques, setting up ghost and patronage payroll schemes as well as dummy/shell corporations to move ill-gotten stock, stealing products and reusing products on patients, or even lording your ego, fame or narcissistic, self-indulgent behaviors over co-workers, remain completely unacceptable actions.
When this blight occurs, it should motivate all of us to stop, sit back and examine ourselves. Each one of us represents selected components of an entire industry, which in and of itself, remains a component of a much larger industry that serves society at large.
Amid the specter of criminal and uncivil behavior that may be lurking in someone else’s life right now reading these words, it’s fascinating — but also discouraging — to see the infrequent topic of “Purchasing Law and Occupational Ethics” as a routine educational seminar. And when it does show up on a conference docket, too few attend. Perhaps this industry feels it knows right from wrong. It should. But knowing is not the same as doing — especially if the short-term results seem so blindingly bright that you don’t notice the long-term blight that follows when you’re eventually caught and exposed.
We can do better. We must do better. We need to do better. Together. Individually.
Admittedly, that lead statement remains a personal motto that extends into the professional realm.
Unfortunately, not everyone shares or practices it on a universal basis.
For the last 25 years, opinion columns such as this one served as my creative outlet alternately to advocate, criticize, evangelize and even satirize supply chain behaviors, operations and viewpoints. Designed and intended merely to provoke thoughts, some column topics and treatments can ignite misplaced emotional distress and misdirected occupational duress — especially if a topic and the way it’s portrayed by one observer’s words hits too close to home and pokes or taps the internal guilt-o-meter.
Borrowing unabashedly the title of Jay McInerney’s famous 1992 novel, I’m disappointed to touch upon yet another case of “Brightness Falls” in this industry.
Every few years, as if by clockwork, a healthcare supply chain leader, manager or front-line professional succumbs to a temptation that invariably leads to scandal. These incidents span ignorance and negligence to outright malfeasance and felonious behaviors. Some might argue a fine line delineates morals from ethics, and both from legalities. But this isn’t an exercise to parse words and play with the boundaries of truth.
Whether you’re a dogmatic, orthodox absolutist or a compassionate, but somewhat logical pragmatist and anything in between or outside of those psychological jurisdictions, you surely agree on one thing: Whenever one of your own falls, it hurts everyone continuing onward.
Take the trite notion of one bad apple doesn’t spoil the bunch. However, we all know that’s a fallacy. If you leave a bad anything in close contact with anything else it will infect everything. Clinicians can vouch for that in this era of outbreaks and pandemics with oddly sounding, but famously memorable names. Granted, such infection may not be guaranteed. What IS guaranteed, however, are tarnished reputations as well as ill-informed and uninformed opinions spreading vitriol quickly and seamlessly in this era of instant media saturation.
Once the bile spreads, it takes a long time to scrub away. In fact, time does not heal old wounds; it just gives you the opportunity to cover up the wound with a scab, followed by an emotional paint job. Maybe what you do with your time determines how thoroughly and how well the wound heals.
Armchair psychotherapy aside, healthcare supply chain leaders, managers and front-line professionals should not use a colleague’s disgraceful exit as a convenient excuse to criticize or look down their noses at others. Committing contract signing mistakes, falling for sales rep strategic and tactical seduction techniques, setting up ghost and patronage payroll schemes as well as dummy/shell corporations to move ill-gotten stock, stealing products and reusing products on patients, or even lording your ego, fame or narcissistic, self-indulgent behaviors over co-workers, remain completely unacceptable actions.
When this blight occurs, it should motivate all of us to stop, sit back and examine ourselves. Each one of us represents selected components of an entire industry, which in and of itself, remains a component of a much larger industry that serves society at large.
Amid the specter of criminal and uncivil behavior that may be lurking in someone else’s life right now reading these words, it’s fascinating — but also discouraging — to see the infrequent topic of “Purchasing Law and Occupational Ethics” as a routine educational seminar. And when it does show up on a conference docket, too few attend. Perhaps this industry feels it knows right from wrong. It should. But knowing is not the same as doing — especially if the short-term results seem so blindingly bright that you don’t notice the long-term blight that follows when you’re eventually caught and exposed.
We can do better. We must do better. We need to do better. Together. Individually.
Rick Dana Barlow
About the Author
Rick Dana Barlow | Senior Editor
Rick Dana Barlow is Senior Editor for Healthcare Purchasing News, an Endeavor Business Media publication. He can be reached at [email protected].
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